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The cast of "Star Trek: The Original Series" had an endearing ability to laugh at themselves. It wasn't just about the sense of levity that often existed on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise; it was the actors' willingness to be goofy and play broadly for laughs. Even a performer as seemingly stiff as William Shatner could loosen up and act the fool when a scene called for it. This capacity to clown was on full display when the crew traveled back in time to 1986 San Francisco to kidnap a couple of humpback whales in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home"; watching Spock learn to curse, Bones react in horror to the state of 20th century medicine, and Kirk put the moves on Catherine Hicks' cetologist made us howl because it was so clear the cast was having a wonderful time.

The "Star Trek" cast were also game for comedy...

While Gene Hackman and Quincy Jones received stand-alone memorial tributes during Sunday’s Oscars telecast, several other notables did not appear in the show’s annual “in memoriam” segment.

Michelle Trachtenberg, who died suddenly last week at age 39, was one prominent name not included, to the dismay of many social media users. While perhaps best-known for work on TV series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she also appeared in a number of films including Harriet the Spy, EuroTrip and Ice Princess.

Others excluded from the montage included British actress Olivia Hussey. She won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe for playing the female lead in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film version of Romeo & Juliet and later turned up in Black Christmas and Death on the Nile.

Hussey and her then-young co-star Leonard Whiting sued Paramount Pictures in 2023, alleging they suffered physical and mental pain as well as “extreme and severe...

We lost some entertainment giants in 2024.

Among the big-screen legends who died during the past 12 months were Donald Sutherland, James Earl Jones, Maggie Smith, Carl Weathers, Shelley Duvall, Dabney Coleman, Teri Garr, Louis Gossett Jr., Anouk Aimée, Marisa Paredes and Gena Rowlands.

Related: Saying Goodbye: A Video Tribute To The Hollywood And Media Figures We’ve Lost In 2024

The TV world mourns the likes of Bob Newhart, John Amos, Phil Donahue, Linda Lavin, David Soul, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Martin Mull, Shannen Doherty, Michael Cole, Richard Lewis, Richard Simmons, James B. Sikking, Peter Marshall and Joe Flaherty.

Filmmakers and producers who left us include Norman Jewison, Roger Corman, Al Ruddy, Jon Landau, Lynda Obst, Jim Abrahams, Charles Shyer, Irv Wilson and Paolo Taviani.

The industry also paid tribute to such top executives as Charles Dolan, Paula Weinstein, Jamie Kellner, Richard Parsons, Gerald Levin and Paul Fox.

Broadway’s lights were a...

The comedy genre has produced some of the greatest movies of all time, from iconic parodies like Airplane! and Young Frankenstein to satires like The Death of Stalin. When it comes to sequels, the genre has more than most, with the relatively low cost of making a great comedy allowing for success to turn good stories into franchises. As a result, a wide range of comedies of all stripes have produced some excellent sequels.

Comedy sequels can be incredibly hit or miss, with some movies losing key cast members or original creators, while others find success with each entry. However, when they're done right, they can keep the audience coming back for more, even surpassing the prior films. From spy parodies to coming-of-age tales, returning to the stories of entertaining characters can bring the comedy genre to its height -- and some movies prove it.

The Spy Who Shagged Me...

The Oscars will continue their long-running tradition of honoring celebrated filmmakers with their "In Memoriam" segment on Sunday. ABC will broadcast the event hosted by Conan O'Brien with Hulu streaming the ceremony live at 7 p.m. Et; 4 p.m. Pt.

Among the Oscar winners and nominees who will have their lives celebrated are Teri Garr, Louis Gossett Jr., James Earl Jones, Jon Landau, David Lynch, Joan Plowright, Gena Rowlands, Albert S. Ruddy, David Seidler, Richard M. Sherman, Maggie Smith, Robert Towne, and honorary recipients Roger Corman, Quincy Jones, and Donald Sutherland.

There are more than 100 movie professionals who died since the last Academy Awards ceremony. Each person who was an Academy member is designated below with **. Keep in mind that producers usually choose between 40 and 50 for the segment and that a performer has not yet been confirmed.

Edited to add two-time Oscar winner Gene Hackman.

Jim Abrahams — Director/Writer

Anouk Aimée...

After leading a mixed career as a dramatic actor, Leslie Nielsen experienced one of the greatest career shifts in Hollywood when he reinvented himself as a comedy star, beginning in 1980's Airplane!. Soon after, the actor took on a variety of roles in some of the funniest movies of the next two decades, from police parodies to superhero spoofs. As a result, he has remained one of the most beloved comedy actors of the era, particularly for his deadpan performances.

While his comedy career had its share of hits and misses, Leslie Nielsen always made sure to be the most memorable part of his projects, even if he didn't have a leading role. Under comedy directors like Jim Abrahams, David & Jerry Zucker and Mel Brooks, Nielsen gave audiences the sillier side of humor. While his films might be seen as too low-brow for some viewers, others continue to embrace what...

Twelve years have gone by since the release of a new entry in the Scary Movie horror parody series – but the franchise isn’t going to remain dormant for much longer. Last April, it was announced that the Miramax label at Paramount, which is now operating under new boss Jonathan Glickman, had given the greenlight to a new Scary Movie sequel, with the plan being to get the film into theatres sometime in 2025. Now we know exactly when the new movie is going to be released… but it’s not going to be this year. Scary Movie 6 is scheduled to reach theatres on June 12, 2026. As of right now, we know this is going to put it in direct competition with the next movie from the Daniels, the directing duo behind Best Picture Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The Scary Movie series is being revived with the help...

Charlie Sheen might have suffered more than a few career setbacks and caused innumerable controversies, but that does not deny the fact that he is a prolific actor. Apart from his work in Two and a Half Men, the actor has given audiences some of the best blockbusters in his career.

Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men | Credit: CBS

One of these is a tongue-in-cheek parody film of Tom Cruise’s Top Gun, called Hot Shots! that ended up becoming a cultural phenomenon in its own right. Furthermore, the film also scored remarkably well at the box office, allowing Sheen to create a career record.

Top Gun parody that helped Charlie Sheen show his box office might Hot Shots! (1991) | Credit: 20th Century Studios

Charlie Sheen, in his remarkable career, has appeared in several movies and TV shows. However, his 1991 Top Gun parody film, Hot Shots! took Hollywood by storm.

Credit to them, The Naked Gun series never tried to be gracious with their humor. Between its slapstick, sight gags, play on words, and juvenile humor, writer-directors Jerry Zucker, David Zucker, and the late Jim Abrahams threw every kind of joke at you throughout the parody trilogy starring Leslie Nielsen as bumbling police detective Frank Drebin. Regardless of how unsubtle they are in their execution, The Naked Gun films, even its inferior sequels, are purely delightful, and you can find a new gag or punchline upon every re-watch. In certain cases, the Zuckers and Abrahams' humor can touch the third rail, not so much from a socially insensitive lens, but by landing in hot water in court. Promotional material for the final film in the trilogy, The Naked Gun: 33 1/3: The Final Insult, spoofed Demi Moore's famous Vanity Fair cover photo, something its photographer, Annie Leibovitz, was not amused by.

On a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, when asked if she'd ever been mistaken for another celebrity, The Last Showgirl star Pamela Anderson recalled an incident on an airplane in which a man had to be restrained because he was threatening the actress - though it was clear he had mistaken Anderson for a controversial country musician. On the podcast, Anderson said:

This one time, I was on a flight and this guy came up to me and said, 'Do you know what this country's done for you?...' And I was like, 'Oh, my God. What have I done?' This stewardess had to handcuff him to the chair because he was trying to attack me. Yeah. And, [it ended] up, he thought I was a Dixie Chick... Remember that whole Dixie Chick thing? I almost got killed on a plane."

Anderson is referring to the backlash the...

Gwen Van Dam, whose 70-year career as a character actress for film, television and the stage included turns in True Confessions, Halloween, Coming Home, Stir Crazy and The Trip to Bountiful, has died. She was 96.

Van Dam, who compiled about 140 acting credits on IMDb, died Dec. 19 at her home in West Los Angeles after a recurrence of cancer, her son, Dirk Smillie, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Van Dam remained a busy actress until the end, appearing on the first five episodes of Prime Video’s Homecoming in 2018, on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie in 2019 and on two installments of Hulu’s Interior Chinatown last year. She recently finished a play, too.

Her TV résumé included The Brady Bunch, Mannix, Maude, House Calls, Days of Our Lives, Moonlighting, 227, Knots Landing, Star Trek: Generations, ER, Gilmore Girls, Charmed, New Girl, Criminal Minds, Angie Tribeca and Modern Family.

Meanwhile, she spent the...

The 1991 spoof Hot Shots! found itself to a small degree mirroring the front pages of the newspapers – and 20th Century Fox was worried.

Save for a few sporadic examples – the first Scary Movie, for instance, and more recently The Goes Wrong Show on the BBC – it feels like the era of the successful screen spoof came to a juddering halt in the 1990s. In 1993, we had the second of two Hot Shots! films, and in 1994 the Naked Gun trilogy came to an end. After those? It was slim pickings.

There were further attempts to breathe fresh life into the spoof – Spy Hard, Jane Austen’s Mafia!, Wrongfully Accused – but nothing that could live up to some of the movies we got in the 80s and early 90s.

In 1991 in particular, the spoof was a box office draw. This was the year when many big budget Hollywood productions came in well below box office expectations.

Image Source: Amazon While most of the eulogies for the late Jim Abrahams have rightfully centered around Airplane!, the movie that catapulted him and the Zucker brothers into the public consciousness, it would be negligent to ignore some of the other films he made. Just as Airplane! skewered disaster movies, Hot Shots took aim at the success of Top Gun and other iconic ’80s films. Continuing with his practice of casting against type, Charlie Sheen — who was primarily known for his dramatic roles at that point — was brought in as the film’s lead. When the film was originally released, Sheen talked to us about Abrahams gave him the confidence to feel like he could be an on-screen comedian (a skill that would later serve him well on Two and a Half Men). (Click on the media bar below to hear Charlie Sheen.) https://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Charlie...

William Shatner kicked off his career as a promising young actor in the company of the prestigious Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario. But when, despite strong notices for his performances, he failed to springboard to stardom like his Canadian colleague Christopher Plummer, Shatner lowered his sights and embraced the philosophy of a working actor. This isn't a knock. He shined in his "The Twilight Zone" episodes, and was superb as a racist interloper who stokes violence against the Black residents of a small town in Roger Corman's "The Intruder." However, he also took so many guest roles in television that he ran the risk of driving down his value by dint of his ubiquity.

Three seasons and several great episodes of "Star Trek" fixed that for Shatner, but throughout the 1970s he become closely associated with a kind of laughably serious, easily parodied manneredness. The ne plus ultra of...

Earlier this year, Paramount and Miramax announced that they are reviving the Scary Movie horror parody series to bring a Scary Movie 6 to theatres sometime in 2025, with the Wayans Brothers back in creative control – and that announcement has inspired us to go back and revisit the earlier entries in the franchise. Now we’re up to the 2006 sequel Scary Movie 4, and you can hear all about it in the video embedded above.

Directed by David Zucker from a screenplay by Craig Mazin, Jim Abrahams, and Pat Proft, Scary Movie 4 has the following synopsis: Dim-witted Cindy Campbell and her sex-crazed friend, Brenda, team up with cute-but-clueless Tom Ryan to save the world from a hostile alien invasion, with hints of War of the Worlds, Saw II, Million Dollar Baby and The Village.

The cast includes Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Craig Bierko, Leslie Nielsen, Bill Pullman, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Hart,...

As 2024 starts to close out, Amazon Prime Video is bringing even more cinematic goodies to its slate for November.

TheWrap is here to give a list of the best of the best of what’s to come on the streamer and what’s already added that you can enjoy. From heart-warming dramas to fresh, animated flicks that will take you on an adventure and more, we’ve got it all here for you.

Check out the best new movies streaming on Prime Video this month below.

“Gladiator” (Universal Pictures) “Gladiator” (2000)

We had to add “Gladiator” to the list with its sequel being in theaters and all. So if you need to watch it before heading to the movies, check it out on Prime Video. In Ridley Scott’s action-adventure “Gladiator,” Maximus (Russell Crowe) is a former general who’s been enslaved and forced to fight for his life as a common gladiator.

Following the death of Jim Abrahams, there’s been a lot of chatter online about a movie he co-wrote: The Naked Gun. Fans have been sharing their favorite scenes on social media, such as the prolonged bribery sequence featuring Lt. Frank Drebin and a shady dockworker.

But wouldn’t these scenes be more fun if you got to control Frank Drebin yourself?

Apparently we came surprisingly close to getting a Naked Gun tie-in video game. As reported by retro gaming site Time Extension, British game developer Perfect Entertainment obtained the rights to The Naked Gun franchise decades ago, and were planning on releasing a game based on the classic comedy in late 1997.

The company’s co-founder, Gregg Barnett, recently revealed that the game would have been a “2D point-and-click adventure” with a new storyline that incorporated the mind-control technology used by the villainous Vincent Ludwig to try and bump off...

Writer and director who was part of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team behind the classic film spoofs Airplane! and The Naked Gun

The 1980 disaster movie spoof Airplane! was a flyaway success. Made for $3.5m, it grossed over $170m and forged a new style of film comedy. It was written and directed by the trio known as Zaz: the brothers Jerry and David Zucker, and their childhood friend Jim Abrahams, who has died aged 80 of leukaemia.

There had been movie send-ups before, notably from Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and the Monty Python team. One of the innovations of Airplane!, though, was to multiply the gags without lingering on them. The audience had to be quick to keep up: this was one instance where the phrase “laugh-a-minute” represented a serious understatement.

This article first appeared into the September 2018 issue of Empire.

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Thirty years after unleashing defective detective Frank Drebin onto the streets of LA, the men behind The Naked Gun talk us through its most iconic moments.

“I’ve finally found someone I can love. A good clean love, without utensils.”

So spoke Lieutenant Frank Drebin in the closing moments of The Naked Gun, romancing his girlfriend mere seconds after his would-be assassin is trampled to death by a marching band. It’s been 30 years since Leslie Nielsen’s Drebin crashed into cinemas, getting everything wrong yet somehow still solving the case. Today, Drebin’s co-creators David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker (aka Zaz), brought together by Empire for an anniversary chinwag, are in fine fettle — there’s no mistaking Drebin’s heritage. “Tell me if I’m wrong,” says Empire, about to pose a question. “You’re wrong!

Writer-director was involved with a string of hits, including Airplane!, Hot Shots! and The Naked Gun. Here are some of the most famous scenes

Jim Abrahams, the writer-director involved with the hit comedies Airplane! and The Naked Gun, has died at the age of 80.

Here we take a look at the funniest moments from his most popular film and TV comedies.

Jim Abrahams, one of the creative minds behind such comedies as Airplane!, three Naked Gun movies, and the TV series Police Squad!, died November 26, 2024, at his Santa Monica, California home, Deadline reports. He was 80 years old.

Abrahams was born May 10, 1944, in Shorewood, Wi. He grew up with the brothers David and Jerry Zucker, and the trio often referred to as "Zaz" got their start in Hollywood with The Kentucky Fried Movie. Written by Zaz and directed by John Landis, the film consists of a series of crude, sometimes offensive vignettes something which, by modern standards, could never be made today. Abrahams and the Zucker brothers appeared in the movie alongside James Bond actor George Lazenby, Donald Sutherland, and The Incredible Hulk star Bill Bixby, among others.

The trio got their big break in 1980 with Airplane!, a send-up of '70s disaster flicks like Airport and The Poseidon Adventure. Starring Leslie Nielsen,...

Let's play a game, faithful readers, called "Name That Movie." An ex-pilot, who tragically led his team to their deaths in the war, develops a fear of flying. When his significant other leaves him, he boards the plane she's on, hoping for another chance. Then fate intervenes, and both pilots, and a number of passengers, develop food poisoning. With no one else to turn to, it falls on the ex-pilot to overcome his trauma and land the plane. If you said 1980's Airplane!, you're right. If you said 1957's Zero Hour!, you're also right. In the words of Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers), "Exsqueeze me? A baking powder?" How can both be true? Well, believe it or not, Airplane! isn't just one of the greatest comedies of all time, it's also a remake of Zero Hour!, and even though the latter is a taut drama and the former a farce for the ages,...

At the age of 80, filmmaker Jim Abrahams has sadly passed away. If you don't know his name, you certainly know his movies, because he's the comedic mastermind behind movies such as Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and Hot Shots! Airplane! is arguably the best of the bunch, as a hilarious spoof of 70s disaster films like Airport 1975. Abrahams not only wrote but directed the film, along with Jerry Zucker and David Zucker, which famously took a serious actor named Leslie Nielsen and turned him into an instant comedy icon. While that might have been a brilliant casting choice, another decision could have ended in disaster. Before Robert Hays was cast in the lead as Ted Striker, the trio were set on hiring talk show host David Letterman.

The writer and director, who died this week, helped to define what big screen spoofs would look like in the decades after

Jim Abrahams, co-creator of Airplane! and The Naked Gun, dies aged 80

Very few people can honestly claim to have changed the direction of comedy, but Jim Abrahams – who died this week – is one of them. Thanks to the procession of spoof movies he made, both alone and with his fellow writer-directors David and Jerry Zucker, Abrahams helped to carve out a brand new genre of comedy, equal parts straight-faced and scattergun.

The most enduring Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (Zaz) film remains Airplane! After leveraging the show they honed at University of Wisconsin–Madison into the entertaining if directionless sketch film The Kentucky Fried Movie, the trio came across the 1957 aviation thriller Zero Hour! on television. They were so taken by the silly plot and wooden acting that they decided to parody the whole thing,...

It is with great sadness that we bring you the news Jim Abrahams, the legendary writer-director who — alongside brothers Jerry and David Zucker — gave us such comedy greats as Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and Police Squad, has died at the age of 80. His son Joseph confirmed the news to THR, telling the outlet that his father passed away of natural causes at his home in Santa Monica earlier today.

James S. Abrahams was born in Shorewood, Wisconsin on 10 May, 1944. The son of educational researcher Louise M. Abrahams and lawyer Norman S. Abrahams, it would be fair to say that young Jim Abrahams didn't develop his love of comedy from studying his folks' vocations. Rather, it was the childhood friendship he formed with the Zucker brothers — sons of his father's business colleague, and classmates at Shorewood High School and then the University of Wisconsin in Madison — that helped Abrahams Jr. find his funny bone.

Jim Abrahams, one of the writers and directors behind some of the greatest and most quotable spoof and slapstick comedies of the 20th century — including Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and Hot Shots! — died Tuesday, Nov. 26, Variety reports. He was 80.

Abrahams’ son, Joseph, confirmed his death. No cause of death was given.

Abrahams spent the bulk of his career working alongside his two childhood friends, brothers David and Jerry Zucker. Jerry Zucker, in a statement shared with Rolling Stone, called Abrahams “our third brother.”

He continued: “He had a rebellious streak that drove him.

Filmmaker Jim Abrahams, whose work includes co-directing the iconic comedy movie Airplane!, has passed away.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Jim Abrahams died on Tuesday at his home in Santa Monica, California. According to his son, Joseph, the filmmaker's passing was due to natural causes. He was 80 years old.

Abrahams has long been known for his work on several popular slapstick comedy movies. He frequently collaborated with filmmaking brothers Jerry and David Zucker, and the trio co-wrote John Landis' 1977 comedy Kentucky Fried Movie. They followed this up by co-writing and co-directing Airplane!, the 1980 spoof of disaster movies starring Leslie Nielsen, Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, and Robert Stack.

With a budget of less than $4 million, the comedy earned over $171 million at the box office. The film also won a WGA Award for Best Adapted Comedy. It is still remembered fondly as one of the best slapstick comedies ever made, often quoted by...

Jim Abrahams, the comedy legend who brought some of the most beloved movie quotes of all time into the zeitgeist as the co-director of “Airplane” and co-writer of “The Naked Gun,” has died of natural causes at the age of 80. The news was first broken by The Hollywood Reporter.

Born in Wisconsin in 1944, Abrahams is best known for his career-spanning collaboration with his childhood friends David and Jerry Zucker. Working under the moniker Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, the three men developed a distinct brand of unapologetically goofy, gag-a-minute comedy that often spoofed other popular forms of media.

The trio broke through in 1977 when they co-wrote “The Kentucky Fried Movie,” a star-studded collection of sketches that lampooned many of the era’s lowbrow film genres, including Kung-fu movies and softcore porn. Directed by Max Landis, the film proved to be the perfect introduction to the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker sense of humor, in which landing the perfect...

The world would have been a far less funny place without Jim Abrahams, who passed away today at the age of 80.

Abrahams is likely best remembered for his iconic collaborations with brothers David and Jerry Zucker. The trio’s live “Kentucky Fried Theater” shows eventually paved the way for their first film as screenwriters: The Kentucky Fried Movie. As directors, the Zaz comedy team that gave us all-time classics like Airplane! and Top Secret!, and they later penned the David Zucker-directed The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

When it came to comedies with exclamation points in the titles, they really couldn't be beat.

Speaking of emphatic punctuation, Abrahams continued the absurd, rapid-fire comedic style he pioneered with the Zuckers in his solo directorial effort Hot Shots!, which was quickly followed by Hot Shots! Part Deux.

While the first movie began as a parody of Top Gun,...

Jim Abrahams, part of the writing-directing-producing team behind such comedy touchstones as Airplane!, the Naked Gun films, and Police Squad!, died Tuesday at his Santa Monica home. He was 80.

His son, Joseph Abrahams, confirmed the news to our sister site The Hollywood Reporter.

Along with brothers David and Jerry Zucker, Abrahams also was behind laugh-inducing — and often intentionally groan-inducing — comedy films including Top Secret! and the Top Gun spoofs Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux. Students of the Mel Brooks School of Anything for a Laugh, the trio paired absurd situations with deadpan lines and fueled Leslie Nielsen’s unlikely rise to leading man after 30 years in the business.

The trio got their big-screen start writing The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), a series of decidedly un-pc vignettes directed by John Landis that ranged from silly to uproarious to “what the hell?!” and back. Sample: A TV news anchor deadpans from...

Jim Abrahams, a film director and writer behind hit slapstick comedies like “Airplane!,” “Hot Shots!,” the “Naked Gun” series and more, died Tuesday, his son Joseph confirmed to Variety. He was 80.

With his childhood friends Jerry and David Zucker, Abrahams formed the filmmaking trio, called Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, and popularized the spoof genre of the 1980s.

“Jim Abrahams redefined the boundaries of humor through groundbreaking works like ‘Airplane!’ and ‘The Naked Gun’ series. Together with Jerry and David Zucker, he transformed satire into an art form, inspiring generations of comedians and filmmakers and leaving an indelible mark on the world of comedy,” said the National Comedy Center executive director Journey Gunderson in a statement.

With the Zucker brothers, Abrahams founded the The Kentucky Fried Theater while they all attended college together at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1971. That led to them making their film debut with the indie sketch...

Famed comedy writer and director, who was also involved in Ruthless People and Hot Shots!, died of natural causes

Jim Abrahams, the writer-director involved with hit comedies Airplane! and The Naked Gun, has died at the age of 80.

According to his son Joseph, who confirmed the news to the Hollywood Reporter, he died of natural causes at his home in Santa Monica.

Jim Abrahams, writer-director of “Airplane!,” “Police Squad!” and the third leg of the Zucker Brothers trio that brought zany/deadpan comedy to screens and infinite dialogue quotes among the millions of friends who saw them, has died. He was 80.

Abrahams died Tuesday at his Santa Monica home of natural causes, THR reported Tuesday, according to his son Joseph.

With the brothers Jerry and David Zucker, his childhood friends from Wisconsin, Abrahams wrote the sketch-comedy “Kentucky Fried Movie” in 1977, directed by John Landis. The cult hit was also a modest box-office success with over $7 million, and the three were off to the races.

With Landis off to direct “Animal House,” Abrahams and the Zuckers, or Zaz, took director duties on “Airplane!,” which – despite, but also because of, its relentlessly silly and juvenile gags – still stands among the most revered comedic films of any era.

The most quotable comedy of all time...

One of the major contributors to the comedy film world, Jim Abrahams, has reportedly passed away at the age of 80. The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that his son, Joseph, confirmed that Abrahams died of natural causes at his home in Santa Monica. The renowned writer/director was best known as part of the trio Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, which also consisted of David and Jerry Zucker. All three would produce the immensely beloved comedy Airplane! along with The Naked Gun movies.

The trio would break through by writing the sketch film The Kentucky Fried Movie, which was helmed by John Landis. The Zaz team would also write and direct the spy film parody Top Secret!, which starred Val Kilmer in his debut film role, as well as the Bette Midler and Danny DeVito comedy Ruthless People. The team would eventually go their separate ways, but Abrahams would keep directing with his own comedies,...

Jim Abrahams, the writer-director who with brothers Jerry and David Zucker turned the comedy genre on its ear with such zany efforts as Airplane!, Police Squad! and The Naked Gun films, died Tuesday. He was 80.

Abrahams died of natural causes at his home in Santa Monica, his son Joseph told The Hollywood Reporter.

The trio made their first mainstream impression by writing the sketch-filled Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), directed by John Landis in his prelude to Animal House, and they also combined for Top Secret! (1984), starring a young Val Kilmer, and Ruthless People (1986), featuring Bette Midler and Danny DeVito.

Without his childhood buddies from Wisconsin, Abrahams directed Big Business (1988), starring Midler and Lily Tomlin, and co-wrote and helmed Hot Shots! (1991) and its 1993 sequel, both starring Charlie Sheen.

Joke-filled and laden with sight gags and puns, the humor of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, or Zaz as they came to be known, was fast,...

Jim Abrahams, who co-wrote and co-directed Airplane and a number of other comedy movies with Jerry and David Zucker, has died. Abrahams' son confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the filmmaker died of natural causes in his Santa Monica home on Tuesday. He was 80 years old.

Abrahams was born in...

Eleven years have gone by since the release of a new entry in the Scary Movie horror parody series – but the franchise isn’t going to remain dormant for much longer. Back in April, it was announced that the Miramax label at Paramount, which is now operating under new boss Jonathan Glickman, had given the greenlight to a new Scary Movie sequel, with the plan being to get the film into theatres sometime in 2025. We recently learned that the series is being revived with the help of the people who got it started in the first place: the Wayans Brothers – and now Regina Hall, who played the character Brenda Meeks in the first four movies, has said she thinks it would be fun to come back and work on the new sequel with the Wayans.

Directed by In Living Color creator Keenen Ivory Wayans from a screenplay written by a bunch of people,...

Prime Video, as one of the world's most popular streaming services, is a platform that offers a wide variety of films and television shows, making it an extremely worthwhile subscription to hold onto. Like Netflix and Disney+, Prime Video has a vast consumer base, with over 200 million active users who often enjoy its content. In fact, the streaming service is well-known for bringing new movies every month, with titles ranging from comedic classics to modern cinematic masterpieces.

In October 2024, for example, several highly anticipated films were added to the platform, including Luca Guadagnino Challengers, Brothers, and House of Spoils. Certainly, the following month will be equally impressive compared to the previous, with many incredible films available for streaming. With that in mind, here's a complete list of movies coming to Prime Video in November 2024.

Airplane! (1980) Streaming November 1

Airplane!, co-written and co-directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, is...

Taken (2007) and Schindler's List (1993) star Liam Neeson said on The Late Night With Seth Meyers that Pamela Anderson "is going to steal" the film about the upcoming Naked Gun reboot. Directed by The Lonely Island member and former SNL star Akiva Schaffer, the film is expected to be released in 2025.

Neeson will play Frank Drebin Jr., the son of the original lead, Frank Drebin, played by the late Leslie Nielson. Little is known about the plot, though current previews of the film have received positive responses from a recent screening, with one person said to have called it a mix between Austin Powers and Family Guy. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is one of the movie's producers.

Related Kevin James Is Peter Griffin in Family Guy Live-Action Concept Trailer

A concept trailer featurinng Kevin James as Peter and Adam Sandler as Quagmire imagines a live-action version of Family Guy.

The...

Eleven years have gone by since the release of a new entry in the Scary Movie horror parody series – but the franchise isn’t going to remain dormant for much longer, and it’s being revived with the help of the people who got it started in the first place: the Wayans Brothers! Back in April, it was announced that the Miramax label at Paramount, which is now operating under new boss Jonathan Glickman, had given the greenlight to a new Scary Movie sequel, with the plan being to get the film into theatres sometime in 2025. That announcement didn’t include any mention of writers or a director – but now Deadline has revealed that Scary Movie 6 marks the return of the Wayans Brothers to the franchise. They haven’t been involved with the Scary Movie series since the second movie.

Scary Movie was developed by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans,...

It is exceedingly rare in today's IP-dominated movie marketplace to see an original film spawn a long-running franchise. Granted, these motion pictures aren't always wholly original. But while they tend to be derivative of narrative formulas that have worked in the past, they are at least written from scratch with no significant assistance from a novel or a comic book or a video game or, nowadays, the origin story of a popular brand.

So, kudos to Gregory Widen and Paul Maslansky for possessing the creative chutzpah to launch two very successful franchises in, respectively, "Highlander" and "Police Academy." The former gave fans four feature installments over a 14-year-span, while the latter rattled off six entries once a year between 1984 and 1989 (and a late-in-the-day seventh with much of the same cast in 1994).

"Police Academy" was especially zeitgeisty, trafficking in the zany spoof gags made popular by the Zaz team of David Zucker,...

Airplane!, The Naked Gun and Top Secret are coming together for the Zaz Collection, a brand new 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray boxset.

Paramount Pictures has already released the first The Naked Gun on the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format. Now we have the confirmed that both Airplane! and the mighty, mighty Top Secret! are also landing on 4K disc later this year.

It’s all part of a new three film set, Zaz: The Collection. The Zaz being David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, the creative force behind the movies. The trio directed two of them together, with David Zucker taking on sole duties for The Naked Gun.

Zaz: The Collection is coming our way from Paramount Pictures, and has been listed for release in the UK on 25th November 2024. You can find the listing for the release, and further details, here.

See also: Zucker Abrahams Zucker, and why they went their separate ways.

The Criterion Channel’s at its best when October rolls around, consistently engaging in the strongest horror line-ups of any streamer. 2024 will bring more than a few iterations of their spooky programming: “Horror F/X” highlights the best effects-based scares through the likes of Romero, Cronenberg, Lynch, Tobe Hooper, James Whale; “Witches” does what it says on the tin (and inside the tin is the underrated Italian anthology film featuring Clint Eastwood cuckolded by Batman); “Japanese Horror” runs the gamut of classics; a Stephen King series puts John Carpenter and The Lawnmower Man on equal playing ground; October’s Criterion Editions are Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Hunter, Häxan; a made-for-tv duo includes Carpenter’s underrated Someone’s Watching Me!; meanwhile, The Wailing and The Babadook stream alongside a collection of Cronenberg and Stephanie Rothman titles.

Otherwise, Winona Ryder and Raúl Juliá are given retrospectives, as are filmmakers Arthur J. Bressan Jr. and Lionel Rogosin.

Even 44 years after its release, Airplane! is still considered one of the funniest movies ever made, having entertained generations of fans, and forever ruined any earnest use of the word “surely” in a sentence.

A big reason why Airplane! works so well is its casting. While Paramount wanted to cast the biggest comedy stars of the day, floating names like Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, directors Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker instead opted to hire more dramatic actors in the lead roles, such as Lloyd Bridges and Leslie Nielsen. Keep in mind, this was back when Leslie Nielsen was still considered a dramatic actor.

Enlisting serious actors to play every single absurd scene completely straight is what made the movie hilarious. But casting non-comedians in a comedy did present certain challenges. For example, in order to get the right performance out of Robert Stack, of TV’s The Untouchables fame,...

This August, Paramount+ is bringing you a lot of entertainment with the highly anticipated streaming release of the biographical film Bob Marley: One Love and a very weird but humorous and heartfelt film Sasquatch Sunset, which follows the daily lives of a Sasquatch family. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Paramount+ this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 10 best films that are coming to Paramount+ in August 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Airplane! (August 1)

Airplane! is a disaster absurdist comedy film written and directed by Jim Abrahams, David, and Jerry Zucker. Based on the 1957 drama film Zero Hour! by Arthur Hailey, Hall Bartlett, and John Champion, the 1980 film follows Ted Striker, a former pilot with a fear of flying as he finds himself in the impossible situation of landing a...

Certain parody movies have managed to surpass their original inspirations in terms of popularity, cultural impact, and enduring appeal. Airplane! is now much more iconic than Zero Hour! Singin' in the Rain is so great that a lot of people don't realize most of its songs were taken from other (lesser-known) movies.

From Airplane! to Blazing Saddles to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, some parodies are so great and iconic that they outshine the movies they originally set out to spoof. Usually, a parody movie only gets made because the film its targeting is a cultural staple. As hilarious as Spaceballs is, it was never going to outdo the Star Wars saga. But some parodies go for more obscure targets; not a lot of people know that Airplane! is practically a shot-for-shot remake of a ridiculous disaster movie called Zero Hour!, or that The Naked Gun borrows its premise from Telefon.

Legendary actor Donald Sutherland just passed away at the age of 88. Younger fans probably know him best for playing the villainous President Snow in the Hunger Games movies, or perhaps for voicing Hollis Hurlbut in that one episode of The Simpsons.

Older audiences, on the other hand, grew up watching Sutherland in classic movies like M*A*S*H, Don’t Look Now and The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Although his greatest work, hands down, was this vintage Canadian tourism commercial in which he tells a joke about a salmon fisherman on his wedding day.

Sutherland also starred in one of the most profitable movie comedies of all-time: National Lampoon’s Animal House.

Sutherland played the highly-inappropriate Professor Jennings (who somehow still isn’t the most questionable element of the movie). This may have seemed like an odd role for the actor at the time, but Sutherland only took the gig...

Donald Sutherland passed away Thursday at the age of 88, an actor so respected for his dramatic acting that he won an honorary Oscar in 2017. He’ll be remembered for Klute, Ordinary People, Don’t Look Now and even The Hunger Games, but don’t forget that Sutherland played key roles in three of the most influential comedies ever.

1 M*A*S*H

Take a seat, Alan Alda — Sutherland was the original Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman’s epic satire. Sutherland didn’t get along with the director, but who cares? It was Altman’s first hit-it-out-the-park classic, a movie that thumbed its nose at the Vietnam War by pretending to be about the Korean War. “Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland are two genuinely funny actors,” wrote Roger Ebert in his four-star review. “They don’t have to make themselves ridiculous to get a laugh. They’re funny because their humor comes so directly from their personalities.

Donald Sutherland, the beloved actor who starred in scores of films from The Dirty Dozen, Mash and Klute to Animal House and Ordinary People to Pride & Prejudice and The Hunger Games franchise and won an Emmy for Citizen X, died Thursday in Miami after a long illness. He was 88.

The 2017 Honorary Oscar recipient also is the father of Emmy-winning 24 and Designated Survivor actor Kiefer Sutherland and veteran CAA Media Finance exec Roeg Sutherland. CAA confirmed the news to Deadline.

Related: Remembering Donald Sutherland: A Career In Photos

In some of his most well-known roles, he perfected a laconic, wry and dead-serious delivery. Such was the case for characters including the cool-headed amateur murder investigator John Klute, opposite Jane Fonda’s terrified and erratic call girl Bree Daniels in Klute; as Hawkeye Pierce in the film Mash, where he played opposite Elliott Gould’s cut-up Trapper John; and in Nicolas Roeg...

New names have been announced for the cast of the upcoming reboot of The Naked Gun. The film, which stars Liam Neeson in the lead, is set to be release on July 18, 2025.

Per Deadline, the new additions to the cast include WWE Undisputed Champion Cody Rhodes. No details have been revealed about his role, but it's said to be limited to a cameo. The other newly announced cast members include Busta Rhymes (Halloween: Resurrection), Liza Koshy (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts), and Cch Pounder (Rustin).

Related 10 Best WWE 2K Games, Ranked The WWE 2K series has dominated the wrestling genre in the video game world, but some have been a lot more impressive than others from the line.

Paul Walter Hauser, who is something of a pro wrestler himself, is also starring in the new take on The Naked Gun. He plays Ed, the partner to Neeson's Frank Drebin. Other...